Sunset
by cartoon moomba
Summary: The world is slightly tainted red as Zelos Wilder runs. Oneshot.


**Disclaimer: **Tales of Symphonia does not belong to me.

**Rating: **K+

**Spoilers:** Zelos' past, Tethe'alla's Tower of Salvation

**AN:** …Meep. You gotta love Zelos, for the angsty stud muffin that he is. x.x Mweh… I hope you enjoy.

**Sunset**

--

Zelos hates the color red.

He can remember the snowman being built with small gloved hands as his mother watches over behind him, ever so silent in her vigil. The snowflakes fall and melt in his hair, and it takes all of his self-restraint not to allow himself to taste one upon his tongue, knowing that both a Chosen and a noble would not allow themselves to be seen in such a peasant way. He wants to turn to his mother and ask her whether she is proud of him or not, proud of the snowman he has built, but knows that she does not want him to speak to her any more than necessary.

She's told him so far too many times now.

He sets his shoulders and wills those thoughts away, focusing on the snowman that is now beginning to crumble. A frown forms over his face at the sight – he turns his eyes up to the sky as something wet lands on his nose, and sees the snowflakes turning red.

He wonders how that is possible, and is amazed for a moment at the beautiful sight.

He turns to point it out to his mother, no matter how reluctant she may be, and stops at the sight.

His face is frozen in horror as she falls forward towards him, one limp hand landing on his shoulder and dragging him down to her level as her eyes stare frostily into his own.

"You should never have been born," she whispers into his ear, cold and harsh as the winter's day, before letting her body fall limp and slump onto the blood-stained ground.

Zelos doesn't think, but runs away from the shouts and the cries of his mother's murderers.

He knows the arrow was meant for him.

--

Zelos doesn't know as to why he is talking to the horrified boy beside him about what happened on that day – the young man that is everything he is not. Rash, stubborn, justified, _pure_. He is everything Zelos once wanted to be, but at the same time, not. The Chosen cannot imagine life in any other way now – the imagery faded away a long time ago, when he learned that sometimes running was the best option left to him.

Zelos recalls that he hated Lloyd Irving at the start of the journey. Seeing the epitome of what he failed to become right before his nose was surely a mockery of his life, he thinks, sending glares at the boy's falling and rising form as he watches over the fire. It would be so easy to kill him right now, right then – his hidden dagger was within perfect reach in his boot, and nobody would know until it was too late. The blood would simply blend in with the clothes the teenager wore, and his gasps would be muffled by one gloved hand.

The boy was wearing red.

The boy was _radiating _red.

Zelos manages to stop himself before he does something he would regret soon enough – no, he reminds himself. He has to watch these people, to see whether they would prove themselves strong enough to help him escape the clutches of Cruxis. If not, then he was certain Pronyma would be glad for the insight of her enemies.

--

Zelos has never let himself forget what happened back on that day.

Nobody would be able to see it, and that is what makes it an indestructible shield, Zelos thinks. He keeps his hair long and refuses to re-dye it to get rid of the natural maroon that it is (_for the blood stains on his hair when his mother fell to her death_) and his clothes a pale shade of red – pink, he snickers to himself as he thinks of it – to remind himself how she looked as she lay there, motionless and dead, almost as if she never lost her life at all.

The red blood around her told a different story altogether.

--

Zelos learns how to run away.

There were many people relying on the Chosen – a Chosen that was unwilling to sacrifice his own life for the people that had tried to _murder_ him; for the people that only saw him as Zelos Wilder, _the Chosen _– he stopped wondering why they stopped treating him as a rightful human being a long time ago. Zelos was special, for he was the Chosen who was to save them all, and that was what they had been told as they had been growing up.

Zelos was a hero in their eyes. A savior, an angel sent from the heavens, a martyr to be sacrificed for the greater good of them all.

Zelos saw red whenever he thought about it.

At an early age, he learned how to manipulate the people around him. His only family but his half-sister were now gone while the latter was locked away in an abbey, and the King was willing to take him in under his wing. He was given a mansion, a butler, and a handful of maids that did anything he ordered them to.

Zelos brushed his red hair behind him and smiled through it all. Nobody bothered to question the strange Chosen child as to what he wanted instead.

--

When Zelos is kicked out of the church for not behaving the way a Chosen should, he laughed laughs loudly to the night sky and glows in the feeling of being free.

The people are whispering about him as he walks by, charming and grinning and in a particularly good mood. No doubt the rumor mill has spread its gossip about him already, but he doesn't mind, just smiles at them all and enters his mansion where he locks himself in for day after day and refuses the summons of the King.

The people are still fools to believe in me, he muses one afternoon as he lazes around on his grand bed. Now, how was he to remedy that?

He begins by changing his attitude. Soon enough, he is known throughout the world as the Charming Chosen; Meltokio's Number One Ladies Man; Tethe'allas's Most Desirable Bachelor.

Life is good, he thinks one day, when you're running away from the duties of the world and no one knows better.

--

Zelos knows he's a coward, but it doesn't bother him any longer.

"Don't bother," he rasps out at the auburn-haired Seraphim standing above him as he lies out on the harsh floor of the Tower of Salvation. The man's face turns into a small frown as he allows the Healing Circle around his form to dim, granting the wish of what he knows is a dying man.

"So you are running away, then." It is not a question but a statement, and Zelos manages to conjure up a weak laugh.

"I'm always running away," he murmurs, his eyes beginning to lose focus as he stares up at the father of his murderer. He forms a wide smirk at those red, red eyes and continues talking. "I tried to kill your precious son, Kratos, and you still try to offer me retribution." His laugh echoes around the quiet chamber.

"Leave me be, here."

Kratos nods, his eyes liquid steel and his voice a thousand cold cutting knives.

"As you wish, Chosen."

"Not a Chosen anymore," Zelos reminds him, feeling his heart beginning to weaken. The Exsphere at his chest throbs as it tries to revive him, and the young man is glad that his much more powerful Cruxis Crystal is safe in the hands of his half-sister where he left it the night before. "It's all up to Colette now, you hear me? So go, help them, or whatever it is that you came here to do."

Kratos watches him, before giving one final nod. "Very well… Zelos." His voice softens just the tiniest bit. "Thank you for looking after my son."

His footsteps sound past Zelos' ears and then the whooshing sound of the warp being activated, and the dying Chosen gives a blank smile to the now empty room.

"T'was the other way around," he mutters to the air, his breath catching in his throat. A few moments of silence pass, before Zelos sighs and stares up at the ceiling of the crumbling tower, his blood pooling around him until one can't help but think, 'Gee, I never knew a human could bleed so much.'

He slides his eyes to the last blow landed at his stomach, thinking of the irony as the red leaks through his clothes and to the stone ground.

"Thanks… Lloyd."

The Chosen lets his eyes close one last time as he runs far, far away from his detested destiny.

Zelos decides that maybe, the color red isn't so bad after all.

…


End file.
